When picking or compiling orders from transporting units, such as e.g., articles or containers, it is may be necessary to provide the transporting units, which are associated with a common order, in a directed or sorted fashion. In addition, it is conventional to intermediately store (buffer) the transporting units of an order, until all of the transporting units required for the order are present. They are then passed together onto a collecting line which leads them e.g. to the palletisation area, picking station, goods issue, shipment, etc.
In the picking station the goods for fulfilling an order are taken from the transporting or storage units and placed according to the order into an order container etc. The storage container (often called donor) is then routed back into the (high bay) racking storage and stored until needed for the next order.
A (high bay) racking storage facility includes a storage-entry area, via which the goods are supplied to and from which the Automatic Storage and Retrieval Machine (hereafter called AS/RS) collect the goods for placement in storage, the so-called front-zone. In a similar manner, a retrieval area is required, at which after retrieval from storage the AS/RS deposit the goods which are likewise assigned to the front-zone. In the case of automatic goods to the person picking storage facilities, picking locations are typically situated in the front-zone. In the front-zone, the goods are also identified for the inventory management system or the material flow computer.
EP 1 964 792 B1 by the present applicant discloses a method of making transporting units available from a storage facility on at least one collecting conveyor, wherein AS/RS in each storage racking aisle, retrieval-from-storage and outbound lines are so controlled, in such a way as to be matched to one another, and are loaded with goods that ultimately they end up on, or are discharged from, the collecting line in a sorted fashion.
The control and matching are thus relatively complex and require evident technical work in the so-called front-zone, i.e., the area outside the actual racking.
Additionally, it can be necessary to replenish those storage containers etc. from which a picker in the picking station has taken goods to fulfill orders. Usually this is done by means of inducting fully loaded storage units (also often called donor units as they function as a donor from which is picked) from inbound conveyor line and empty donor is removed from the system.
This is necessary for several reasons, e.g., storage containers need to be filled with goods to perform picking.
However, these operations may cause poor cubic utilization of donor as those are half empty in average if it is operated as per above. To prevent this from happening, a separate operation called “consolidation” can be implemented. This consists of operations retrieving several partial donor units, consolidating contents of those into one donor and remove empty donor from the system. This is done in the dedicated station or same pick station but during off peak hours, e.g. during the night, week end etc.
In contrast thereto, one object of the present disclosure is to provide a combined method of order fulfilling and replenishment which permits a more efficient way of replenishment of storage units. Additionally, the method may provide sorted retrieval from storage in a simpler manner or without sortation outside of the isles so as to reduce technical complexity, space, lower cost and increase reliability. Embodiments discussed herein may achieve this object and address other related and non-related problems in the art.